Sunday, March 30, 2008

Failiators

Television sunk several notches lower last week.

It wasn't without warning however, being on channel Seven/Prime, who are the hype kings of television, they plugged the utter crap out of this program for a solid month, and then ran a 4 page spread of it across the pages of TV Week, the haven of the housewife.

Mildly interested, mostly keen to see fit women in lyrca, I tuned in to Gladiators and turned my brain off.

10 minutes later I turned the television off.

I remember back in the mid 90's when Gladiators was originally on, it was full of muscle bound men and women beating on members of the public with Nerf™ products. Not much has changed since then. The Gladiators themselves may be different but the stereotypes are still there.

- The Brick Shithouse: Thunder (original series: Commando)

This guy is the leader, he's the one the kids love and the ladies swoon over, he's big, he's muscled, and he's as dimwitted as the key demographic. The gladiator who gets the most air time, the Brick Shithouse will spurt out poorly scripted lines fed to him by a teleprompter. Be sure to note his anger when he takes place in events, this is usually in the form of throwing whatever he is holding on to the ground... GRRRR FURROWED BROWS.

- The guy with the shit name: Kouta (Vulcan)

I had to look up this guys name twice on the "official gladiator webpage" to make sure I was spelling his name right, because whenever I look up the meaning to Kouta, I just get linked to some Japanese Horror Manga named Elfen Lied.

Apparently Kouta is an AFL player and was on dancing with the stars. No doubt he'll be on an episode of "Where are they now" in 10 years, live from his caravan and failed life.

- The back benchers: Hunter, Bionica, Tank, Nitro (Force, Delta, Rebel, Tornado)



These characters are just there to fill up the numbers and I forsee they will take place in very few events, where the producers opt to use the more popular gladiators like Amazon, Thunder and Angel. If anyone remembers the original show there was a guy named Force and a woman named Delta that never got used, and Delta was hot.

- The Gladiators that got the short end of the stick when it came to gimmicks: Tank, Viper (Taipan, Glacier)



Viper is a woman who acts like a snake, they highlight this by painting parts of her skin to look snake-like.... I get the gimmick yes.. but christ it's bad.

Tank on the other hand is just some guy with a camo bandanna and black stuff under his eyes, he salutes alot and looks menacing.. but as for the name Tank? Why not Commando?

oh that's right.. Commando was an original Gladiator, we can't use the same name now can we? People will get confused!! Poor mindless drones of people who sit in front of the TV to watch ridiculous shows like this.

- The fan service girls: Angel, Destiny (Cheeta)



The blond women with the large chest regions and in the case of Destiny, pigtails. Yep, these two are clearly for the men. The program highlighted that when the girls walked out for the gauntlet event, and Destiny was in the middle, chest pillows pointing up at a 45 degree angle, liable to poke out the eyes of anyone who comes near.

- The Black Guy: Scar (Vulcan)



Every show has one! Collect them all!


The last stereotype is probably the worst, considering this is a family show and when television producers mean "family" they mean "kids and really bored parents", there is always a hint of controversy, I remember back in the mid 90's there was some pedophilia claims surrounding one of the male Gladiators, and the American version of the show already has controversy over two of their stars! Have a read here.

It's only a matter of time before one of the females on this show has a wardrobe malfunction, or some form of drugs shows up in a locker. I can only hope that it signals the end of this no brainer sludge once and for all.

But then again, if Channel 10 got away with turkey slapping, I'm sure channel 7 could get away with a Today Tonight prostitution ring involving former gladiators and Nudge from Hey Dad.

The sad thing is I didn't edit this image at all, I just entered "hey dad nudge" into Google images and this was the first result....

No wonder shows like Gladiators are on the air..... people are idiots.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lol too right!!! I love the original and couldn't wait for the show to come but it is the same in every way except 3 new games were added and none of the names matched (angle come on what is that!!!) ok there my rant and here’s your comment! Enjoy!

Unknown said...

I lol'd

Anonymous said...

I had the displeasure of half watching this last night at Brendan's....2 things

-The fellow that wears and salutes, that seems to be all he does

-when the host said "angel spreads her wings" we all had a hearty chuckle

This show is pure fail

Anonymous said...

Wears camo, I meant to say

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